Saturday, June 15, 2013

"Stay quiet marine. You
will be ok. God is with us all this day." — Father Vincent
Capodanno, last words, speaking to a wounded marine on a battlefield in Vietnam
46 years ago in 1967. A few seconds later, Capodanno was shot and killed. Today
in Vietnam, not far from the spot where he died, a Mass was celebrated in his
memory. (See note on these words at the end of the story
below)

Today, June 14, something extraordinary happend in
Vietnam.

A
Mass was celebrated by a Vietnamese bishop in memory of an American Marine
chaplain, Father Vince Capodanno (photo), who was
killed in Vietnam on September 4, 1967, at the age of 38. Capodanno was ordained
a priest on June 14, 1957, so this Mass today was celebrated in commemoration of
the 56th anniversary of his ordination.

And so, in a sense, the Mass,
attended by Americans and Vietnamese Catholics, was a sign of peace, and perhaps
also of healing, nearly a half century after the end of the Vietnam
War.

The Mass was largely the result
of an effort by an old friend, Captain Edward "Ted" Bronson, a career Navy
officer, now retired, who believes Capodanno was a holy man who died a holy
death, administering the last rites to wounded soldiers on the battlefield, and
so ought to be canonized by the Church as a saint.

All went well. As magnificent
and spiritual a Mass as you could pray for. About 500 attended. The bishop sat
on the side, after opening remarks re Father Vincent Capodanno. Then came the
procession of 15 celebrants. A high school choir of 38 "rang out" with English
hymns.

(A view of the church where
the Mass today was celebrated; Photo by Joan Lewis)

I
did the first reading.

(Photo of those attending
the Mass, by Joan Lewis)

A
reception followed for all, a Vietnamese food feast.

Among the 500 were two bus
loads of Que Chau villagers from two hours south. We had a special Mass in a
home there on Wednesday for 83. They exude pure, intense, single focus faith. It
seems as if, were they asked to give up their faith, instead they would join the
earlier "martyrs of Vietnam."

This village Mass site was 2 km
from the Que Son valley battlefield where Father Capodanno died with his fellow
marines on the opening day of "Operation Swift" on 4 september 1967. It was the
worst casualty day for our Marines in the war, as they were outnumbered 500 to
2000.

Father Capodanno's death
occurred 15 seconds after telling a wounded marine, "Stay calm marine. Some one
will be with you shortly. God is with us this day."

He then went to the side of a
corpsman who cried out for help and both were machine gunned to
death.

Father Capodanno was a true
"Grunt Padre."

Danang Bishop Joseph Tri told
us afterwards, he will make this an annual 14 June Mass for the repose of the
soul of Father Capodanno. The date is the anniversary of his ordination to the
Maryknolls by Cardinal Spellman 55 years ago today.

'Twas magic, Bob, and
it was all your challenge at dinner after the Mass at Santa Susanna, Rome 21
May, 2012. I started with a blank piece of paper and went from there... with a
measure of help from my guardian angel and Bishop Tri. Delighted to have
participated.

Now in Saigon; fly out at 5 am;
into DAC at 5:45 pm. Thank you for your friendship and 'till we meet again, very
best. Ted

==================================

Note
on Father Capodanno's last words

I received the following
note about Father Capodanno's last words, which are reproduced above in two
different forms.

Bob,

Thank you for
covering this historic Mass. Several Marines heard these words from Fr.
Capodanno, though versions vary slightly with each telling. From the biography,
the quote reads:

"Stay quiet, Marine. You will be OK. Someone will be
here to help you soon. God is with us all this day." The reference is
found on page 133 of The Grunt Padre by Fr. Daniel Mode, as recalled by
Operation Swift veteran Corporal Ray Harton.

Thank you for all you do to
make known Fr. Capodanno. It is an important and timely Cause to be
sure.

Also present at the Mass
was another old friend, the Rome correspondent for EWTN Catholic television,
Joan Lewis. She flew to Vietnam specifically to attend this historic Mass, and
wrote a report today on her blog, "Joan's Rome." Here are
excerpts:

Friday, June 14,
2013

By Joan
Lewis

As I write these words, it is 9
am on a hot Friday morning in DaNang and I am in the courtyard of Sacred Heart
Cathedral where the gates have been opened to welcome the bus loads of pilgrims
from nearby and from far villages who have come today for Mass at 10 that Bishop
Joseph Tri has organized to celebrate Servant of God Fr. Vincent
Capodanno.

June 14th was the day, 55 years ago, that Vincent Capodanno
was ordained to the priesthood in the Maryknoll order, a missionary order that
sent him abroad during his short life as a priest. Eventually he became a
chaplain and died giving the last rites to solders in Vietnam, not far from
DaNang.

The courtyard is huge but I
know it will soon be filled by scores of motorbikes and bicycles in addition to
the buses -- probably not a single car! I am sitting on a stone bench next to a
lovely sculpture of the Holy Family, listening to the hustle and bustle and
horns of DaNang traffic outside the complex that comprises the cathedral,
bishop’s residence, school rooms, church halls and the convent.

I have
just been joined by a young priest – the brother of our driver these past days.
He is from the DaNang diocese and is also a scout leader. We are having a good
conversation about many things involving the Church in Vietnam – as well as
scouting – but now have to go into the church to prepare for Mass. I will video
the Mass and take photos and Father is one of the concelebrants.

More
later…..

It is much later now and I am
writing from Ho Chi Minh City, from one of the most famous hotels in this part
of the world, the Rex Hotel. I am luxuriating in an amazing room in the new wing
of the Rex and enjoying, as the expression goes, “champagne tastes on a beer
budget.” The Rex opened in 1961 and its first guests were 400 U.S. Army
soldiers. They stayed here a week as their tents were being set up in Saigon and
Quy Nhon.

During the Vietnam War (called
the American War in some guidebooks), the Rex became especially famous for
hosting the daily military press conference which the journalists who resided in
the Rex cynically called “The Five O’Clock Follies.”

(photos of the
Mass)

Following Mass, the cathedral
offered a buffet lunch for about 400-500 people. It was astonishing hospitality
and prepared by a group of women in the parish!! It was a ton of fun and I could
have stayed and spoken to the people for hours, especially the wonderful,
joyful, enthusiastic young people! I wanted to charter a plane and bring them to
Rome!

(In this photo, Joan Lewis
dines with some of the vibrant young Vietnamese Catholics who attended the
Father Capodanno Mass today in Vietnam)

Once again, as always happens
on these trips, it is late and I am overdue for dinner so will close this
chronicle of June 14, 2013, a celebration of the life of Servant of God Fr.
Vincent Capodanno. The bishops spoke about him this morning but it was all
naturally in Vietnamese and the only words I understood were Vincent
Capodanno!

To get a feel for the day’s
events and people, go to my many Youtube videos of this occasion. I know my
Vietnamese friends in Rome and the U.S. will enjoy hearing Mass in their
language – though the youth choir sang in English for the occasion and they were
superb!

The example of Father
Capodanno, in his life and in his death, shows us the meaning of the Marine
Corps motto, "Semper Fi" ("Semper Fidelis," Always Faithful.)
Here is an article written two years ago which well describes Capodanno's life
and death:

Father Vincent
Capodanno and the Meaning of “Sacrifice”

May 16,
2011

By Beth
CrumleyIf you have never visited Semper Fidelis Memorial
Chapel on the grounds of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, you have
missed visiting a truly inspirational place. It is a breathtakingly beautiful
building, an edifice of stone, rich wood and soaring glass that derives much of
its beauty from the surrounding landscape. It is also breathtakingly simple.
Nestled in the woods, it was designed to pay homage to the improvised chapels
found in the field, attended by those who bear the burden of war.

Last
Wednesday was nothing short of a glorious spring day in Virginia. The skies were
crystal clear, without a cloud, and vibrant blue. A warm breeze stirred the air.
Springtime had brought the grounds surrounding the chapel to life. I was struck
by how green the trees were, and by the sound of birds singing. And on this
glorious spring day, several people had gathered for a private ceremony to
dedicate the “Sacrifice” window in memory of Navy chaplain, and Medal of Honor
recipient, Father Vincent Capodanno.

As a former theology student, and a
Marine Corps historian, I have long had an interest in those chaplains who have
chosen to serve with the Fleet Marine Force. Of particular interest to me were
those who served in Vietnam. It was many years ago that I first heard of the
“Grunt Padre,” Father Capodanno.

The son of an Italian immigrant, Vincent
Capodanno was the youngest of ten children. He attended night classes at Fordham
University and in 1949, confided to a close friend that he had felt a calling to
the priesthood. He had read The Field Afar, a magazine published by the
Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, also known as the Maryknolls. Their
training was different… in addition to traditional seminary courses of study, a
Maryknoll’s training also included emergency medical care, basic sanitation and
agrarian methods and survival tactics. Capodanno relished the challenges of the
Maryknoll education and was ordained on 7 June 1957.

After serving in
Taiwan and Hong Kong, Father Capodanno requested permission to join the Navy
Chaplain Corps and serve the growing number of Marines arriving in Vietnam.
Commissioned a lieutenant on 28 December 1965, Capodanno arrived in country in
April 1966, assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. Asked by a reporter why he
had chosen to volunteer for service in Vietnam, Capodanno simply said, “I think
I am needed here as are many more chaplains. I’m glad to help in any way I
can.”

The Reverend Daniel Lawrence Mode, author of The Grunt
Padre described this most extraordinary man of God and his service to the
Marines in his spiritual care: “Known for a remarkable courage and tenacity, the
grunts could hardly be prepared for the horrible realities of war they routinely
saw each day -- deaths, brutal woundings, endless loneliness and depression,
temptation to despair. To combat the darkness of the combatant, the light of
Christ needed to be lit and carried. Such was the job of the Christian chaplain
in a war zone… Father Capodanno chose to be more than just a priest assigned to
minister to the tragedies of war. He became a spiritual comrade by removing all
distinctions and obstacles between his grunts and himself in the way he had
learned in his Maryknoll training and ministry. He lived, ate, and slept as the
men did… Grunts recall in vivid detail their padre keeping company with them
through an entire night, isolated in distant and dangerous jungle outposts.
Others recall the Grunt Padre leaping out of a helicopter in the midst of
battle, blessing the troops, serving the Eucharist to the Catholics, and then
leaping into a chopper heading off to another corner of active conflict… He
remained at the side of the dying, present until the end, rather than let any
man die alone, and then he sought to offer solid grounding and hope to the
buddies who grieved at the loss of friends.”

While serving as the
battalion chaplain with the 1st Medical Battalion, Father Capodanno requested an
extension to his tour of duty. That extension granted, he continued to work
tirelessly in his new assignment with the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines.

In
September 1967, the 2d NVA Division moved into the Que Son Basin, south of Da
Nang, in a planned effort to disrupt elections in the area. Operation Swift
began when elements of the 5th Marines were attacked in the early morning hours
of 4 September, southwest of Thang Binh. Father Capodanno had been travelling
with the command post of Company M, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines. First Platoon
came under heavy enemy fire. Second Platoon was ordered to assist. While
crossing a small knoll they came under withering fire and radioed they were in
danger of being overrun.

Father Capodanno left the
relative safety of the command post and as his Medal of Honor citation
describes, “ran through an open area raked with fire, directly to the
beleaguered platoon. Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic
weapons, and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering
last-rites to the dying and giving medical aid to the wounded. When an exploding
mortar round inflicted painful multiple wounds to his arms and legs, and severed
a portion of his right hand, he steadfastly refused all medical
aid.”

Father Capodanno moved to the side of Sergeant Lawrence Peters. He
recited the Lord’s Prayer with him. After Peters had died, he moved to comfort
Corporal Ray Harton. He cradled the young corporal’s head, blessed the wounded
Marine with his left hand, saying, “God is here with us, Marine, and help is on
the way.”

As the fighting raged, Father Capodanno saw a young lance
corporal giving aid to a wounded corpsman who was in danger of bleeding to death
from a thigh wound. As the priest moved toward the wounded man, an enemy machine
gunner set up his weapon no further than 15 meters away. Father Capodanno
gathered the corpsman in his arms, and used his own body to shield the wounded
man from enemy fire. He was struck and killed instantly, 27 bullets piercing his
body. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

The day after his
death, a letter written by Father Capodanno was delivered to the regimental
commander. In the letter, the fallen priest had written, “I am due to go home in
late November or early December. I humbly request that I stay over Christmas and
New Year’s with my men. I am willing to relinquish my thirty days
leave….”

Forty-four years later, we sat in Semper Fidelis
Memorial Chapel, reflecting on the service of this extraordinary Servant of God,
a title bestowed upon him by the Catholic Church. We contemplated the meaning of
“sacrifice,” and pondered both his life and his death. Said one Marine, “He
radiated the love of God. He was, in fact, the presence of God in our midst… He
was an oasis in the midst of a very difficult situation. He was always willing
to take on our burdens, to share in our sufferings and anxieties. Whenever I
heard him speak I had a feeling of peace. If we were worried and anxious, he
took our fears and burdens.”

In the closing moments of the dedication
ceremony, Lieutenant General Ron Christmas reminded those gathered that we were
in the Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel -- “Always
Faithful.”

“Have faith,” he said, “in
those young men and women who wear the uniform. Have faith in your God, have
faith in this great country, and have faith in our Corps.”

And let us
remember the sacrifices of so many, and the sacrifice of Father Vincent
Capodanno.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

These folks, often in
positions of incredible influence, are absolutely sure that human beings are
nothing but animals and can do nothing at all to change their behavior. They
are absolutely at the mercy of the stimulus-response model that was ceated in
the forlorn hope that social scientists could reduce human behavior to a
mathematical formula: "If x,
therefore y")

“The current priority is on
teen-pregnancy prevention, which is only sexual-risk reduction at best. The
purpose is no longer to provide teens the information and skills to avoid
all sexual risk by waiting for sex [abstention,
continence, chastity] — the purpose is merely to reduce the risk of
pregnancy by encouraging teens to use contraception when they have
sex.”

Real prevention wasn’t discussed at all by Bolan, [Mary Beth]Bonacci [ Real Love Incorporated ]
noted. “The CDC’s main recommendations, aside from ‘open and honest
discussion’ and ‘speaking out against shame and stigma,’ seem to revolve around
testing and screening for diseases that are already present,” said Bonacci,
“which isn’t prevention at all. It might lead to earlier treatment, but it won’t
prevent infection, except perhaps in a future partner who may learn of the
diagnosis and elect not to have sex with the infected individual. But, then,
that goes back to that ‘abstinence’ thing.”

A key federal health official’s CNN commentary claims such
diseases are ‘totally preventable,’ but omits any mention of chaste behavior as
a solution.

ATLANTA — Sexually transmitted disease is rampant in America: Across the
country, at any given time, 110 million people are afflicted with chlamydia,
genital herpes, genital warts, syphilis and other sometimes silent, sometimes
painfully obvious, damaging diseases.
That means that one in two Americans will be infected by an STD at some point
in their life.
But despite this evidence of a comprehensive failure in existing strategies
to control the spread of STDs, the nation’s public-health establishment
continues to give short shrift to promoting sexual abstinence before marriage
and fidelity within marriage as a primary means of prevention.
According to the
latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released in
February, there are 19.7 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections in
America every year.
Half of the cases are among young people, aged 15 to 24. And one in four
American teenagers is infected every year — worse odds than a game of Russian
roulette.
The CDC estimates the total direct medical costs of this epidemic to be about
$16 billion per year. But the life-altering costs of the diseases that cause
pain, shame, declined school performance, increased poverty, infertility,
difficult pregnancies, genital and cervical cancer and neonatal transmissions of
infections are incalculable.
In a
commentary for CNN in April, describing “How Sexually Active Young People
Can Stay Safe,” Gail Bolan, the director of the CDC’s STD prevention division,
said the health and economic toll of sex-related disease was “totally
preventable. “
“With increased awareness, prevention, testing and treatment, we can bring
this hidden epidemic into the spotlight and safeguard the health of young
people, while saving the nation billions of dollars in the process,” she
said.
Yet absent from the entire article was the idea of preventing disease by
waiting to have sex until marriage and then faithful monogamy — the message of
so-called “abstinence education.”

Funding Cut
And financially, too, abstinence education has been seriously set back under
the Obama administration.
In April, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) issued an
alert after President Obama advised the Department of Health and Human
Services to redistribute a portion of Title V funding, which allocates $50
million to the states for abstinence education, to programs that focus on
contraceptive use instead.
“Current federal sex-education policy has a staggering 16:1 disparity in
funding against the sexual-risk avoidance — commonly known as abstinence
education,” Valerie Huber, president of NAEA told the Register. “The
current priority is on teen-pregnancy prevention, which is only
sexual-risk reduction at best. The purpose is no longer to provide teens the
information and skills to avoid all sexual risk by waiting for sex —
the purpose is merely to reduce the risk of pregnancy by encouraging teens to
use contraception when they have sex.”
And they do so even though most teens are not sexually active, and two-thirds
of those who are wish they had waited.
Regarding Bolan’s remarks on CNN, Huber said, “The CDC revealed that one in
four teen girls has at least one STD. Of the four most prevalent STDs among
teens, two of the four [HPV and chlamydia] can be easily transmissible — even
with the use of a condom. This should cause pause among those interested in the
optimal health for youth.”
“Authentic and fail-safe avoidance is only possible with sexual delay,” added
Huber, who said that parents of all political persuasions prefer the
abstinence-based approach.

Real Prevention Not Discussed
Catholic author and speaker Mary Beth Bonacci, whose organization Real Love Incorporated
promotes an integrated understanding of sexuality, love and chastity among young
people, also had trouble with Bolan’s remarks.
“Her article says that all STIs [sexually transmitted infections] are
preventable, which is true,” said Bonacci. “But it fails to mention how
they are prevented.”Real prevention wasn’t discussed at all by Bolan, Bonacci noted. “The
CDC’s main recommendations, aside from ‘open and honest discussion’ and
‘speaking out against shame and stigma,’ seem to revolve around testing and
screening for diseases that are already present,” said Bonacci, “which isn’t
prevention at all. It might lead to earlier treatment, but it won’t prevent
infection, except perhaps in a future partner who may learn of the diagnosis and
elect not to have sex with the infected individual. But, then, that goes back to
that ‘abstinence’ thing.”
Although Bolan was not available to say why abstinence was not mentioned in
the outline of CDC tactics to reduce infection, CDC spokesperson Nikki Mayes
qualified her statements later to the Register.
“To effectively reduce the burden of STIs among our nation’s youth, we must
use all of the prevention options at our fingertips — no single prevention
strategy will completely protect you against all STI,” said Mayes. “Abstinence
is the most reliable way to avoid infection with any STI. However, for those who
are sexually active, mutual monogamy with an uninfected partner, reduced numbers
of partners, condoms, STI testing and vaccination against HPV have all been
proven effective to reduce the risk of infection.”
Mayes added that the current STD-prevention approach of the CDC was working,
and she pointed to the “near-historic low” incidence of gonorrhea, “and we’re
beginning to reverse a decade of increases in the nation’s syphilis rates.”
But back before the current philosophy of “sex education” and STD prevention
took root, gonorrhea and syphilis were the only two STDs of significance in
America.
Today, there are more than 25 infectious diseases of concern. And, while
gonorrhea may be historically low now, in April, scientists were warning that
new, antibiotic-resistant versions of the disease are making gains in the
population and could make the disease “untreatable by 2015.”

Catholic Teaching
In this scenario and in the current epidemic of STDs, Catholic teaching on
sexuality appears to make medical and scientific sense.
It teaches sexuality is a life-giving gift that unifies a husband and a wife
and is not shame-based, but, rather, calls youth, as well as older individuals,
to a higher sexual fulfillment in chastity and purity (married or not).The
Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Chastity means the successful
integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in
his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the
bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when
it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete
and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman” (2337).
“When educating on the great questions of affectivity and sexuality,” Pope
Benedict XVI explained in 2010, “we must avoid showing adolescents and young
people ways that tend to devalue these fundamental dimensions of human
existence. To this end, the Church calls for everyone to collaborate, especially
those who work in schools, to educate the young to a lofty vision of human love
and sexuality.”

About the author

Alexander Lucie-Smith is a Catholic priest and a doctor of moral theology. On Twitter he is @ALucieSmith

Bishop of Salisbury Photo: PA

The Anglican Bishop of Salisbury has written a letter in the Daily Telegraph about gay marriage, which can be read here if you feel you really want to. Embedded in the letter the Bishop has this to say:

“For example, before Wilberforce, Christians saw slavery as Biblical and part of the God-given ordering of Creation.”
Interesting, eh? Wilberforce, one assumes he means William
Wilberforce, was born in 1759 and died in 1833. So, for seventeen
centuries all was darkness until Wilberforce came along and put us all
right on the matter.

This will come as major news to Pope Pius II who condemned slavery as
a great crime and who died in 1464. The same is true of Popes Paul III,
Urban VIII, and Benedict XIV, all of whom long predated the English
reformer, not to mention the founders and members of the Mercedarian and
Trinitarian Orders, which were dedicated to the redemption of slaves.
In fact the history of Christian anti-slavery is a long one, as this
useful article makes clear.

Perhaps we should not expect the Bishop of Salisbury to know much
about any of the people above; after all, they were all Roman Catholics
and foreigners, and thus, one assumes, beneath his notice. But when
someone makes such an ignorant remark, whoever he may be, it is worth
protesting, simply because if such ignorant remarks go unchallenged,
then they may well pass into the mainstream and poison the minds of
future generations.

Slavery is a great evil, but it is simplistic, misleading and
dangerous to see it as something that flourished because of the Bible or
because Christians approved it.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

As Weigel explains in a recent
First
Things essay,
“Evangelical Catholicism is a Spirit-led development reflecting the cultural
contingencies of history, like other such evolutions over the past two
millennia,” of which we could identify (1) the Patristic Church, (2) the
Medieval Church, and (3) the Counter-Reformation Church. Each was necessary for
the demands of its time, each was in keeping with the abiding truth, and each
gave way to a new form. The Patristic church, a roughly thousand-year
development between the primitive and medieval Church, produced the Creeds, gave
us the Fathers, and evangelized the pagans. The 500 years of medieval
Catholicism gave us the Cathedrals, systematic theologies, and major religious
orders before splintering. In roughly the same length of time—500 years—the
Counter-Reformation—“the Church in which anyone over sixty today was
raised”—“converted much of the Western Hemisphere … withstood the onslaught of
the French Revolution … met the challenges of twentieth-century
totalitarianism,” and much else besides.

And yet, “its time has passed.” Led
by the Spirit, the Church moves to a “new evolution in … self-understanding and
self-expression,” even though, of course, the way the Church expresses and lives
itself out never fundamentally alters the “enduring marks” of the Church,
namely, “unity, holiness, catholicity, and
apostolicity.”

In his new book, George Weigel explicates the historical
development of Evangelical Catholicism, a reform begun by Pope Leo XIII
(1878-1903), developed by the renewals of the early twentieth-century,
formalized by Vatican II, and authoritatively interpreted by John Paul II and
Benedict XVI, and now expressed with particular aplomb by Pope Francis.

It’s a stunning account, and, for a recent convert like myself, a mark of the
ability of Catholicism to retain the abiding and unchanging truths of faith
while allowing new expressions—ever ancient, ever new.

As Weigel explains in a recent First Things essay,
“Evangelical Catholicism is a Spirit-led development reflecting the cultural
contingencies of history, like other such evolutions over the past two
millennia,” of which we could identify (1) the Patristic Church, (2) the
Medieval Church, and (3) the Counter-Reformation Church. Each was necessary for
the demands of its time, each was in keeping with the abiding truth, and each
gave way to a new form. The Patristic church, a roughly thousand-year
development between the primitive and medieval Church, produced the Creeds, gave
us the Fathers, and evangelized the pagans. The 500 years of medieval
Catholicism gave us the Cathedrals, systematic theologies, and major religious
orders before splintering. In roughly the same length of time—500 years—the
Counter-Reformation—“the Church in which anyone over sixty today was
raised”—“converted much of the Western Hemisphere … withstood the onslaught of
the French Revolution … met the challenges of twentieth-century
totalitarianism,” and much else besides.

And yet, “its time has passed.” Led by the Spirit, the Church moves
to a “new evolution in … self-understanding and self-expression,” even though,
of course, the way the Church expresses and lives itself out never fundamentally
alters the “enduring marks” of the Church, namely, “unity, holiness,
catholicity, and apostolicity.” Despite the constancy of essentials,
the new expression and life is, at times, quite dramatically different in feel
and language, although nothing really changed. It is the same Church
proclaiming the same Faith in the same Lord.

It also presents, I’d suggest, a genuine opportunity to reach out to
evangelical Protestants, which, until Palm Sunday, I was.

“Roman fever” is a well-documented Protestant phenomenon, perhaps especially
among academics and college students, prompting the common question “Why are so
many evangelicals going to Rome?” A good deal of this results from the fact that
reason alone is insufficient, always requiring tradition, and as evangelicals
look to recover tradition they discover the Tradition. While recovering the
past, they also find the sheer enormity and depth of the Catholic intellectual
heritage, including its music, art, literature, and poetry, all providing a
place to dwell rather than the furious scuttling about of constant
reinvention.

While suspicions are not as deep as they once were, in part because of
ecumenical cooperation on issues such as abortion and marriage, still many
evangelicals have hesitations (to put it mildly) about Roman Catholicism,
largely in four categories: (1) the status of the Bible, and how that relates to
doctrines about Mary, the Saints, and Purgatory; (2) Papal infallibility
(however much this repeats the previous issue); (3) justification and
faith/works, and (4) the Catholic thing—statues, mumbled prayers, fish, the
Rosary, Swiss Guards, noisy kids in the Mass, an odd inability to sing, and so
on.

Don’t underestimate the fourth category. At the evangelical college where I
teach, most students have given me a respectful berth about my
conversion—everybody knew, no one was surprised, no one asked very much—but
before one Honors class a student hesitantly asked if I could explain Marian
doctrine, then another question was asked and another, for about an hour. The
vast majority of questions related to the fourth category: “What’s the
deal with Catholics and drinking?” “Why are people so inattentive during Mass?”
“Bingo … what’s with that?” “Why not spontaneous prayers?” “Why are homilies so
short?” and so on. Not a single question, not one, about
justification, even though in a survey of concerns they would list that
objection, but largely because they know they’re supposed to, not because they
really are bothered by it.

Given the history, how could that be? First, the evangelical Protestant world
is a mish-mash of theologies, a good many of which are not remotely linked to
the magisterial Reformers on justification, which is why there is so much discussion about it, sometimes heated, and a good many evangelicals are not overly tied to Scriptural authority anyway. Second, most people in the pews are not theologians or
Church historians, and evangelicals are perhaps particularly concerned to not be
bogged down by the
past and so not overly worried to distinguish sola fide from sola
gratia. Third, young evangelicals are decent people, and many are more
concerned with care of the poor then with the finer points of sixteenth-century
theological disputes. In other words, I’m proposing that while all would list
the four categories of objections, the most alienating and troubling for many is
the fourth—Catholicism just seems weird and foreign to the most salient aspect
of evangelicalism, which is a committed, personal, meaningful relationship with
Jesus. And from the perspective of a young evangelical, Catholics just don’t get
this.

One of my students, to use a representative anecdote, was seriously exploring
Catholicism. He was attending Mass, was in conversation with a local priest I
had recommended, and was hard at work reading the Catechism and some
theologians. And he loved what he was reading. Eventually, however, he went to a
Presbyterian congregation because, in his words, “the people at Mass were so
uninterested and it was a serious challenge to my faith.” On the one hand, this
reveals a cultural difference on the point of going to services; I go to Mass,
primarily, to receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Everything else is a
bonus, but when I was a young evangelical, I was taught that if I didn’t have an
experience of God something was wrong, and so I had to express my enthusiasm as
proof of my experience. One pastor once told me to “worship hard”—meaning with
visible emotion and zeal—so to help others have a similar experience. If this is
your expectation, the mumbled prayers, sometimes uninspired homilies and music
(oh dear, the music of some parishes! I’ll admit it delayed my own conversion)
can be seen as a mark that this is dead, a religion without spirit. Of course,
this misunderstands the Mass and is an imperialism of expectations, but
culturally it’s a big deal.

On the other hand, it’s also why Evangelical Catholicism has such great
missionary potential for drawing in younger evangelical Protestants. I had read
Aquinas and Augustine and Athanasius, I had studied with the Jesuits, I had
learned the ancient music, I knew the art, I encountered the saints, I was
impressed with the commitment to the poor, but until I met Evangelical Catholics
for whom, as Weigel puts it, friendship with Jesus Christ was the main thing, I
wasn’t convinced. What Weigel describes makes sense to evangelicals, and coupled
with the markers of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity is precisely
what a good many of them/us are searching for: “in friendship with Jesus Christ,
we come to know the face of the merciful Father, for whoever experiences the
Son’s power to forgive sins sees the merciful Father, who welcomes home the
prodigals and reclothes them with the garments of integrity.”

The Great Commission continues, and as we experience the ongoing contraction
of Christendom, the Oneness of the Church will be especially important.
Welcoming home those who left will be an enormous task, requiring patience and
charity. If I’m right, though, a good deal of this work could be accomplished if
we just did what we should be doing anyway, if we just were who we should
be—friends with Jesus.

A Church without Christ is not worth having, but a Christocentric Church will
bring home its separated brothers and sisters; it will evangelize those who
already have faith but wait for its fullness.

This is a four year old
article that does an excellent job of explaining just what happened, or didn't
happen, that caused the Second Vatican Council to become so controversial, even
50 years later.

Was Vatican II
Hijacked?

The key reason
why postconciliar "renewal" often went wrong is the almost incredible fact that
the hierarchy in the early 1960s made almost no systematic effort to catechize
the faithful (including priests and religious) on the meaning of the council –
something about which many bishops themselves seemed confused. "Renewal experts"
sprang up everywhere, and the most contradictory explanations of the council
were offered to Catholics thirsting for guidance. Bishops rarely offered their
flocks authoritative teaching and instead fell into the habit of simply trusting
certified "experts" in every area of Church life. . .
.

The partisans of
aggiornamento[“updating”] became the first theologians in the history of the Church to make
systematic use of the mass media, entering into a working alliance with
journalists who could scarcely even understand the concept of
ressourcement[“back to the
sources”] but eagerly promoted an agenda that
required the Church to accommodate itself to the secular culture. Strangely
enough, some theologians, along with their propagandist allies, actually denied
the Church the right to remain faithful to its authentic identity and announced
a moral obligation to repudiate as much of that identity as possible. "Renewal"
came to be identified with dissent and infidelity, and Catholics who remained
faithful to the Church were denounced as enemies of Vatican II. . .
.

Nothing had a more devastating effect on postconciliar Catholic life
than the sexual revolution, as believers began to engage in behavior not
measurably different from that of non-believers. Priests and religious
repudiated their vows in order to marry, and many of those who remained in
religious life ceased to regard celibacy as desirable. Catholics divorced almost
as frequently as non-Catholics. Church teachings about contraception,
homosexuality, and even abortion were widely disregarded, with every moral
absolute treated as merely another wall needing to be breached. . .
.

Ultimately the
single best explanation of what happened to deflect the council's decrees from
their intended direction is the fact that as soon as the assembly ended, the
worldwide cultural phenomenon known as the "the Sixties" began. It was nothing
less than a frontal assault on all forms of authority. . . .[Actually
the release of the Envoid birth control pill, the inaugural event of “the
Sixties”, came in July of 1961.]

Off the Rails - Was
Vatican II Hijacked?

by James Hitchcock - July 16, 2009

Reprinted with permission from our good friends
atInsideCatholic.com, the leading online journal of Catholic faith, culture, and
politics.

Most Catholics in 1959 probably didn't even know what an
ecumenical council was. And yet, here it was. Pope John XXIII announced that the
goals of the Second Vatican Council would be "the renewal of the spirit of the
Gospel in the hearts of people everywhere and the adjustment of Christian
discipline to modern-day living" – a proclamation that was on the face of it
ambiguous. How was authentic renewal to be achieved? How should essential
discipline be adjusted to modern culture?

John was a relentless optimist, inclined always to look
for good in the world, disinclined to scold, and deeply convinced that he had
been called to help bring about a new Pentecost in the Church. He further
believed that the Counter-Reformation era, characterized both by defensiveness
inside the Church and aggressiveness toward those on the outside, was over. The
council made only an oblique reference to the fact that the 20th century had
already seen a persecution of Christians more severe than any in the entire
history of Catholicism.

The Church was apparently flourishing during John's
pontificate. By contrast with what would come later, its members were unusually
serious, devout, and moral. But such a Church could be criticized as fostering
formalism, a neglect of social justice, and an overly narrow piety, and it's
likely that John XXIII thought that a new Pentecost could build on this
foundation to reach still higher levels.

In his opening address to the council, John affirmed the
infallibility of the Church but called on it to take account of the "errors,
requirements, and opportunities" of the age. He regretted that some Catholics
("prophets of gloom") seemed unable to see any good in the modern world and
regarded it as the worst of all historical periods. The dogmas of the Church
were settled and "known to all," so the conciliar task was to explore new ways
of presenting them to the modern world.The preparatory commissions for the council were
dominated by members of the Curia, who were inclined toward precisely such a
pessimistic view. When the council opened, there were objections to those
commissions, with the result that the council fathers were allowed to approve
new schema prepared by some of their own. In some ways this procedural squabble
was the most decisive event of the entire council, and it represented a crucial
victory for what was now called the "liberal" or "optimistic" party,
guaranteeing that the council as a whole would look on its work as more than a
mere restatement of accepted truths. There was an officially endorsed spirit of
optimism in which even legitimate questions about the wisdom of certain ideas
were treated as evidence of lack of faith.

The intellectual leadership of the council came mainly
from Western Europe, the most influential prelates being
Bernard Alfrink of the
Netherlands, Leo
Jozef Suenens of
Belgium, Achille
Lienart of
France, Julius
Doepfner and Joseph Frings of
Germany, and
Franz Koenig of
Austria. Those
five countries, along with the rest of Europe, possessed
an ancient tradition of Catholicism, and they had nourished a vigorous and
sophisticated Catholic intellectual life.As theological questions arose, the
council fathers almost automatically deferred to the opinions of these European
prelates, who were in turn influenced by men recognized as the most accomplished
theologians of the age – Henri DeLubac, Jean Danielou, and Yves Congar in
France; Edward
Schillebeeckx in the
Netherlands;
Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger in
Germany.

But in many respects the Church in those five nations –
with the possible exception of the
Netherlands –
appeared less than robust (judging, for example, by rates of church attendance
and religious vocations). Indeed, the vigorous intellectual life of those
countries was colored by a certain sense of crisis – the need to make the Faith
credible to modern men. By contrast, the Church in the British
Isles, Southern Europe, and the
United States,
to say nothing of the Third World, lacked dazzling
intellectual achievements but appeared to be relatively hearty.

Most council fathers therefore seemed to have felt little
urgency about most of the questions that came before them. For many, the
discussions involved issues that, before now, hadn't even been considered, such
as making the liturgy and religious life more "relevant." But an unquestioned
faith that the Church would always be preserved from error, along with the
leadership of John XXIII and Paul VI, led most of the delegates to support the
schema that were finally forged from the debate. No decree of the council
provoked more than a small number of dissenting votes. Ironically, in view of
the later claim that the council brought about the democratization of the
Church, deference to authority was a major factor in determining how most of the
fathers voted.

Creating Radicals

John XXIII announced Vatican II as a "pastoral" assembly,
but there were growing differences of opinion as to what exactly that meant.
Pious, instinctively conservative prelates might think of encouraging Marian
devotions or kindling zeal for the foreign missions. The dominant group,
however, moved the council toward dialogue with the modern world, translating
the Church's message into a language modern men understood.

The council fathers always strove to remain balanced. To
take what are now the most fiercely debated issues, they imagined no revisions
in Catholic moral teaching about sexuality, referring instead to "the plague of
divorce" and to the "abominable crime" of abortion. Deliberately childless
marriages were deemed a tragedy, and the faithful were reminded of the Church's
condemnation of artificial birth control.At the same time, the fact that practically every aspect
of Catholic belief seemed to be under discussion had results that John XXIII
probably didn't intend. Famously, at one point he removed the subject of
contraception from the floor of the council and announced that he was appointing
a special commission to study the issue – an action that naturally led some to
believe the teaching would indeed be revised. When Paul VI issued Humanae
Vitae in 1968, liberals were outraged that he rejected the commission's
recommendation to permit some forms of birth control and accused him of
betraying the council.

The council fathers each had periti, or
advisers, on matters of theology and canon law, and some of them were very
influential, both in shaping the thought of the prelates whom they advised and
in working behind the scenes with like-minded delegates and other
periti. In explaining the theological revolution that occurred almost
immediately after the council, some orthodox Catholics speculate that a
well-organized minority intended from the beginning to sabotage the council and
that they successfully planted theological time bombs in the conciliar decrees –
doctrinal statements whose implications were deliberately left vague, to be
activated later. But there's little evidence of this.

It's characteristic of revolutions that they are rarely
planned ahead of time. Rather, they arise from the sudden acceleration of
historical change, caused by the flow of events and the way in which people
relate to those events. There is no evidence that anyone came to the council
with a radical agenda, in part because such an agenda would have been considered
hopelessly unrealistic. (Some liberals actually feared that the council would
prove to be a retrogressive gathering.)A major factor in the postconciliar dynamic was the
reformers' own heady experience of swift and unexpected change. For example, in
1960 no one would have predicted – and few would have advocated – the virtual
abandonment of the Latin liturgy. But once reformers realized that the council
fathers supported change, it became an irresistible temptation to continue
pushing farther and faster. What had been thought of as stone walls of
resistance turned out to be papier-mâché.

The council itself proved to be a "radicalizing"
experience, during which men who had never met before, and who in some cases had
probably given little thought to the questions now set before them, began
quickly to change their minds on major issues. (For example, Archbishop – later Cardinal
– John F. Dearden of Detroit, who was considered quite rigid before the
council, returned home as an uncritical advocate of every kind of change.)
When the council was over, some of those present – both periti and
bishops – were prepared to go beyond what the council had in fact intended or
authorized, using the conciliar texts as justification when possible, ignoring
them when not (as recounted, for example, by Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who was in
charge of liturgical reform after the council, in his book The Reform of the
Liturgy). Aware that the council didn't support their
agenda, they quickly got into the habit of speaking of the "spirit" of the
council, which was said to transcend its actual statements and even in some
cases to contradict them.

The Role of the Media

While the council
was still in session, it occurred to some that it was less important what that
body actually said and did than what people thought it said and did.
Thus as early as the first session, in 1962, there was an orchestrated
propaganda campaign to present the deliberations and define the issues in
particular ways and to enlist the sympathies of the public on behalf of a
particular agenda. Certain key journalists became "participant-observers,"
meaning that they reported the events and at the same time sought to influence
them – the chief practitioners being "Xavier Rynne" (the pen name of the
Redemptorist historian Francis X. Murphy), who wrote "Letter from Vatican City"
for the New Yorker magazine, and Robert Blair Kaiser, who reported for
Time.Such reports were written for a largely non-Catholic
audience, many of whom were unsympathetic to the Faith, and the thrust of the
reporting was to assure such readers that the Church was at long last admitting
its many errors and coming to terms with secular culture. Most Catholics
probably relied on these same sources for their understanding of the council and
so received the same message.The key reason
why postconciliar "renewal" often went wrong is the almost incredible fact that
the hierarchy in the early 1960s made almost no systematic effort to catechize
the faithful (including priests and religious) on the meaning of the council –
something about which many bishops themselves seemed confused. "Renewal experts"
sprang up everywhere, and the most contradictory explanations of the council
were offered to Catholics thirsting for guidance. Bishops rarely offered their
flocks authoritative teaching and instead fell into the habit of simply trusting
certified "experts" in every area of Church life. Indeed, before the council
was even over, several fallacious interpretations were planted that still
flourish today.

Even the best journalistic accounts were forced to
simplify the often subtle and complex deliberations of the council fathers. But
there was also deliberate oversimplification for the purpose of creating a
particular public impression. The media thus divided the council fathers into
heroes and villains – otherwise known as liberals and conservatives. In this
way, the conciliar battles were presented as morality plays in which
open-minded, warm-hearted, highly intelligent innovators (Cardinal Alfrink, for
example) were able repeatedly to thwart plots by Machiavellian reactionaries
(Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani of the Holy Office). It was a morality play that
appealed to the prejudices of many Westerners of the mid-20th century. It also
had a real if immeasurable influence on many bishops, who soon discovered that
being viewed as "progressive" would gain them a favorable press, while the
opposite would make them into public villains.

For
understandable reasons, vastly disproportionate attention was lavished by the
media on such things as the vernacular liturgy and the end of mandatory Friday
abstinence, since concrete practices could be easily dealt with journalistically
and such practices had long helped to define the differences between Catholics
and others. Catholics who understood almost nothing of the theological
issues of the council came to understand that its "real" purpose was repealing
rules that had become burdensome and old-fashioned.But in another sense the attention lavished on such
things was not disproportionate, because in a sacramental Church "externals" are
the doorways to the spirit. In theory it
perhaps ought not to have mattered whether nuns wore habits, but in practice the
modification, then the total abandonment, of those habits marked the beginning
of the end of religious life as it had existed for centuries. For many people
the distinction between essentials and nonessentials was almost meaningless. If
Catholics were no longer forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, why could they not
get divorced, especially given the widespread conviction that the
purpose of the council and of "Good Pope John" was to make people comfortable
with their faith?

Many of the council fathers, after they returned to their
dioceses, seemed themselves to be in a state of confusion over what they'd done.
Only a relatively few – some orthodox, others less so – had a clear and
consistent understanding.

For most, the
postconciliar period proved to be a time of rudderless experimentation, as
Catholics groped to understand what the council had mandated. For many people
the one sure thing, amid all the postconciliar uncertainty, was the fact of
change itself; in an odd way it seemed safest to do or believe almost the
opposite of what Catholics had previously been taught.

The Scars of Renewal

Underlying the council were two different approaches to
reform – approaches that were not contradictory but that required serious
intellectual effort to reconcile. One was ressourcement("back to
the sources"), a program of renewing the Church by returning to its scriptural
and patristic roots (DeLubac, Danielou, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar all held to
this).

The other was aggiornamento("updating"), by which the
supposed demands of contemporary culture were the chief concern (Hans Küng,
Schillebeeckx, and to some extent Rahner, were all proponents). Kept
in balance during the council itself, these two movements increasingly pulled
apart afterward and resulted in the deep conflicts that continue to the
present.A prime example of the postconciliar dynamic at work was
the "renewal" of religious life. Cardinal Suenens wrote the influential book
The Nun in the World, enjoining sisters to come out of their cloisters
and accept the challenges of modern life. Whatever might be thought about them
as theological principles, such recipes for "renewal" also promised that those
who adopted them would experience phenomenal revitalization, including dramatic
numerical growth, and for a few years after the council the official spirit of
naive optimism won out over the "prophets of gloom."

The most famous instance of such renewal in the
United States
was that of the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Los Angeles. Their program of
aggiornamento had all the ingredients required at the time – intense
publicity from an overwhelmingly favorable media, a prestigious secular "expert"
(the psychologist Carl Rogers), picturesque experiments with nontraditional
behavior (encounter groups), and a reactionary villain (James Cardinal McIntyre)
portrayed as the only obstacle to progress. Not until it was too late did anyone
ask whether the IHM Sisters, along with countless others, were simply abandoning
their vocations completely. [ Wiki - By 1970, 90% of the
sisters were dispensed from their vows.http://is.gd/Vt83ep
]

A tragic dimension of the conciliar period was precisely
the irrelevance and ultimate failure of the exciting intellectual programs that
emanated from what were then the five most influential Catholic nations. For a
very brief period, Dutch Catholicism made a bid to give the universal Church a
working model of renewal, before "the
Dutch
Church" imploded and sank into
oblivion. Rates of church attendance and religious vocations may have been
worrisomely low in
Belgium,
France, and
Germany in 1960,
but the bishops of those countries probably couldn't imagine how much lower they
would fall. In ways not recognized 40 years ago, it's now clear that the
strategy of countering secularism by moving closer to the secular culture just
doesn't work.

The partisans of
aggiornamento became the first theologians in the history of the Church
to make systematic use of the mass media, entering into a working alliance with
journalists who could scarcely even understand the concept of
ressourcement but eagerly promoted an agenda that required the Church
to accommodate itself to the secular culture. Strangely enough, some
theologians, along with their propagandist allies, actually denied the Church
the right to remain faithful to its authentic identity and announced a moral
obligation to repudiate as much of that identity as possible. "Renewal" came to
be identified with dissent and infidelity, and Catholics who remained faithful
to the Church were denounced as enemies of Vatican II.

This occurred at the most fundamental level, so that the
authority of the council itself was soon relativized. The notion that a council
would claim for itself final authority in matters of belief came to be viewed by
liberals as reactionary. Vatican II was thus treated as merely a major
historical epiphany – a moment in the unfolding history of the Church and of
human consciousness when profound new insights were discovered. According to
this view, the council's function was not to make authoritative pronouncements
but merely to facilitate the movement of the Church into the next stage of its
historical development. (For example, the Jesuit historian John W. O'Malley in
1971 proposed that certain conciliar texts could be legitimately ignored as
merely reflective of intellectual immaturity, timidity, and confusion on the
part of the council fathers.)

After the council, the concept of "the People of God" was
reduced to a crude form of democracy – doctrine as determined by opinion polls.
The liturgy ceased to be a divine action and became a communal celebration, and
the supernatural vocations of priests and religious were deemed to be obstacles
to their service to the world.

Nothing had a
more devastating effect on postconciliar Catholic life than the sexual
revolution, as believers began to engage in behavior not measurably different
from that of non-believers. Priests and religious repudiated their vows in order
to marry, and many of those who remained in religious life ceased to regard
celibacy as desirable. Catholics divorced almost as frequently as non-Catholics.
Church teachings about contraception, homosexuality, and even abortion were
widely disregarded, with every moral absolute treated as merely another wall
needing to be breached.

Off the Rails

Ultimately the
single best explanation of what happened to deflect the council's decrees from
their intended direction is the fact that as soon as the assembly ended, the
worldwide cultural phenomenon known as the "the Sixties" began. It was nothing
less than a frontal assault on all forms of authority.

Bereft of catechesis, confused by the conciliar changes,
and unable to grasp the subtle theology of the conciliar decrees, many Catholics
simply translated the conciliar reforms into the terms of the counterculture,
which was essentially the demand for "liberation" from all restraint on personal
freedom. Even as late as 1965 almost no one anticipated this great cultural
upheaval. The measured judgments of Gaudium et Spes, the council's
highly influential decree on the Church and the modern world, shows not a hint
of it.

Had the council met a decade earlier, during the
relatively stable 1950s, it's possible that there could have been an orderly and
untroubled transition. But after 1965 the spirit of the age was quite different,
and by then many Catholics were eager to break out of what they considered their
religious prison. Given the deliberately fostered popular impression that the
Church was surrendering in its perennial struggle with the world, it was
inevitable that the prevailing understanding of reform would be filtered through
the glass of a hedonistic popular culture. Under such conditions it would
require remarkable steadfastness of purpose to adhere to an authentic program of
renewal.

The postconciliar crisis has moved far beyond issues like
the language of the liturgy or nuns' habits – even beyond sexual morality or
gender identities. Today the theological frontier is nothing less than the stark
question of whether there is indeed only one God and Jesus is His only-begotten
Son. It is a question that the council fathers didn't foresee as imminent and,
predictably, the council's dicta about non-Christian religions are now cited to
justify various kinds of religious syncretism. The resources for resolving this
issue are present in the conciliar decrees themselves, but it's by no means
certain that Church leaders have the will to interpret them in final and
authoritative ways. Forty years after the council, serious Catholics have good
reason to think they've been left to wander the theological
wilderness.

Here is the full text
of Senator Dan Hall's speech on the Senate floor 5-13-13:

There’s a lot of celebrating going on today but there’s also a
lot of grieving going on today. Grieving because there are many people in the
state who do not believe this is the right thing to do. I sometimes call this
the divine tension. Our constitution has protections for religious freedom—not
to protect the government from religion.

I have six key points I’d like to state.

First off, marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together
as husband and wife, to be the father and mother to any children their union
produces.

Second, marriage is based on truth that men and women are
complementary. The biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a
woman, the reality that children need both a father and a mother—which one
would you not have wanted. Marriage is society’s least restrictive means of
assuring the well-being of children. Marital breakdown weakens civil society.

Government recognizes marriage because it benefits society in a
way that no other relationship does. Government can treat people equally and
with respect and respect their liberty without redefining marriage. Redefining
marriage would further distance marriage from the needs of children and deny
the importance of mothers and fathers. It weakens monogamy, exclusivity and
permanency, the norms to which marriage in our society [inaudible] and it will
threaten religious liberty.

I know that, Madam President, you do not allow us to pray in the
name of Jesus or the holy spirit while we’re up there, but I ask that the holy
spirit be with all of us today in this capitol around Minnesota during this vote. Today we may
be changing the course of freedom for our children and our grandchildren in Minnesota. We may be forced to not just
listen to someone else’s view—but to accept and then legislate and next, I
believe, we will be forced to believe what we don’t.

I have been accused of attacking same-sex marriage because I
disagree with the lifestyle. When has disagreeing become an attack? When has
taking a stand against something you believe in become a personal attack?
Freedom can only be free if we keep our moral compass. If we resolve to
strengthen marriage instead of dismantling it. Without strong morals, that
which we believe is right or wrong, we lose our freedoms.

Redefining marriage, which has many restrictions—you can’t get
married if you’re under 18 without parents’ permission; only two people can get
married, not three, not more—is opening that Pandora’s box. If you think
marriage, the way it is now, is discriminating, why not add another group?
That’s what we’ve done, we’re still discriminating, if that’s what you believe,
unless we open it up to all.

But they’ll call me a bigot, they’ll call me a hater, they’ll spit
in my face, like they did a friend of mine last Thursday. There are things in
life, members, that are worth standing up for, even to be persecuted for.

Many have said to me, ‘Sen. Hall, you don’t understand. You’re
married, live in a nice suburb, you’ve got kids, live in a nice house, two-car
garage, you’re well educated.’

Most of you don’t know I grew up in the southeast projects, 71
Saint Marys [Avenue] by the U of M. Many of my relatives were addicts,
criminals, two sent to prison, more than one child molester. Those that my
mother tried to keep us away from were relatives. My mother raised four
children in the projects but had an alcoholic husband that she divorced when I
was six years old.

Two years later, she married another, my stepfather who
also was a drunk. When he was home, we tried not to be. When I was 12 my mother
told him, “You either get on your knees and accept Jesus and have him take over
your life and stop drinking or there’s the door, don’t ever come back.’ He did
that that day, our life changed, that was a turning point in my history. My
father did this 48 years ago today. He’s now in a nursing home, my mother still
lives on LakeNokomis.

But the change of history is like what we’re doing today.
It will forever change the fate of family.

I have family members on both sides of this issue. All of us are
not perfect and all of us carry baggage from the past and our families. All
have sinned, all have faults, I certainly do. I sin every day. This is not
about that. It’s about what’s good for children. The children here in Minnesota. It’s about making the right
choice for children’s future. The question is: Are homosexual marriages good
for children? Are we as members in this chamber going to change the course of
history? As to what the adults, we the caretakers, the public policy holders,
leaders of Minnesota—what we think is right for
children.

Back to marriage. Marriage is about giving, not taking. It’s
about being willing to serve another, giving your affection to no other and,
spiritually, marriage is about two becoming one in God’s eyes. A civil union is
having a contract to protect yourself from the other that may take advantage of
you and legally securing the government and civil benefits that have been
reserved for marriage. There are consequences to everything. There will be
unintended and, I believe, intended consequences.

Members, God has written his word on your hearts: Don’t
legislate what you think personally is wrong. Choose life and life abundantly.
Dismantling marriage will bring hurt, shame, confrontation and more
indoctrination. Forcing others to give you your rights will never end well. It
won’t give you the recognition you desire. That which is right can easily be
seen by all. Let me say that again: That which is right can easily be seen by
all.

Is this easy for you? Most people know this is not right. You
asked for this job, members, when you ran for office. Leading is not easy. Are
you still looking for an excuse to vote for it? I’m not giving you that today.
I’m here to affirm true beliefs that come from your relationship to your
creator.

Do you really want what Europe has? They’re on the verge of
civil disaster. Some have said, ‘But don’t you want to be on the right side of
history?’ The truth is I’m more concerned about being on the right side of
eternity.

In conclusion, let me say this: My desire today is to bring more
peace, more justice to all of Minnesota. I propose that we vote “No” on
this bill and that we propose a more loving document that will more clearly and
more distinctly allow the freedom that both communities would desire.

Don’t fool yourself today and think voting yes on this bill ends
the conversation. The great people of Minnesota deserve better than this. This
document will bring civil disobedience.

This document will split our schools, our churches, our towns,
our counties, our state. It will hurt businesses and confuse children. More
than any single issue has ever done since the civil war.

This bill needs to be crafted in such a way that it will not push
civil rights back 50 years but bring our communities together. Please think
about the devastating repercussions this vote will have on our communities. We
must not pass this bill but, rather, we must take one more time to craft a
truly bipartisan bill that respects the values of all Minnesotans and where no
one feels they’re being shoved into an unwanted world, no one feels their
religious liberties are being taken away.